That’s because the organizations that sponsored the 3,000-participant race paid the city for the $75 citations three weeks ago.

Chuck GeorgeChuck George, race director for the New Orleans Track Club, assured runners that the tickets are all paid up, and stressed that they refrain from sending any more money to City Hall because officials can’t refund any paid fines.

“All tickets will be listed as ‘paid’ on (the city’s) computer system within a few days,” George stated in an e-mail message distributed to race participants.

Robert Mendoza, director of the Department of Public Works, said the city’s computer system is automatically programmed to send out a second notice shortly after a citation is issued.

There is no mechanism to stop the notices from being mailed, so they went out, even after the New Orleans Athletic Club, the New Orleans Track Club and the Spina Bifida Foundation of Greater New Orleans paid the 603 tickets, Mendoza said.

Additionally, limited staffing, coupled with the amount of time needed to manually process the ticket payments in batches, have kept the fines from being recorded.

The second notices warned of a $150 fine if the citations weren’t paid by Dec. 26.

“Just ignore those notices,” he said.

Mendoza points out that the sponsors only paid for the neutral ground parking citations, not for violations such as blocking the driveway or a fire hydrant in the nearby residential neighborhood.

George said next year, organizers will place signs along the neutral ground to remind people not to park their cars there. He recommended parking inside Tad Gormley Stadium, on Victory Avenue or at City Park.

On Thanksgiving Day, racers grew enraged when they discovered tickets flapping on the windshields of their cars, which were parked on Marconi Boulevard neutral ground.

They had parked there in years past without punishment.

Many later received an e-mail message expressing an apology and “complete shock” over the tickets at the 102nd annual race, which is the fifth oldest in the United States and benefits the Spina Bifida Foundation of Greater New Orleans.

Organizers decided to pay the fines on behalf of the runners since none knew about the municipal ordinance prohibiting parking on the neutral ground, George said.

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Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at rvargas@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3371. Katie Urbaszweski can be reached at kurbaszweski@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3330.